That sign was the first thing you saw. Back then, Kauffman points out, as Alaska and Hawaii were celebrating statehood, Vegas was promoting a "fun in the sun" state of mind. Please enter email address to continue. Please enter valid email address to continue. Chrome Safari Continue. Foreigners scramble to get U.
New U. All Sections. About Us. B2B Publishing. Business Visionaries. Hot Property. Times Events. Times Store. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options. By Jay Jones. Riviera, , designer unknown; Riviera, , designer unknown; Welcome, , Betty Willis.
We put flashing lights, chasing neon, and everything we could to put action into it. The whole theme of the sign was to make people feel welcome. Betty Willis designed the sign, and this was the story she told about its creation decades after the fact. Betty is a beloved and unique figure in Las Vegas history. She didn't design hotels or the tallest signs, didn't hang out with Frank, Dean, or Sammy, carry a black bag of cash for the mob.
She was a graphic designer, who worked with a pencil, paper, and ruler. We love the sign, so we love Betty. She gained fame for the Welcome sign late in life, and was given the rare opportunity to tell her own story, which she did well in many interviews.
When she died in these stories ran in obituaries published all over the county, from The Los Angeles Times, to The New York Times, and everywhere in between. Some of the stories seem like the usual telling Las Vegas history itself, gleefully unconcerned with detail.
We knew the sign would be recognizable because of the odd shape. Stars and sputniks shined all up and down Fremont Street and the Strip, on motels, restaurants, service stations, and casinos — the brightest one of all at the top of The Mint YESCO, This doesn't take away from Willis' creation.
I believe the strength of the Welcome sign has less to do with its unique innovation and more to do with what it adapted from the best. There were ten to fifteen companies making neon signs in late 50s Las Vegas from Utah-based YESCO, already decades in the business, to locals like Western with a small crew and one shop at Mojave Drive where the Welcome sign was manufactured. Competition and influence is evident in the work. Each sign seemed to inch higher than the other with bigger stars and arrows and more exaggerated shapes.
In the Welcome sign itself, one can find a lineage of design elements. Riviera's second and more flamboyant sign from is this one that serves as the clearest inspiration to the Welcome sign: an angular double column topped with a star and an offset-mounted geometric-shaped board.
Willis said the inspiration for the sign's stretched diamond shape came from the Goodyear logo of the era. The shape might have also been familiar to her and to hotel and motel customers all over the country in the s as the standard hotel key fob. We may also never know exactly when the sign was installed. There were no photographs, no ceremony and no mention of the city's new welcome sign in any of the papers. No one called to tell Betty. She wasn't a part of the sale.
She was out of a job. Tourist photo, September , Vintage Las Vegas collection. Ray Dennis Steckler was a low-budget filmmaker based in Las Vegas whose movies ranged from campy horror, to travelogue, to porn - sometimes all at once. He shot a scene where the frame opens on a car coming down a long highway.
The camera turns, following the car as it passes, and ends with a close-up on the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign — its big screen debut. In the early years the sign shows up in snapshots and 8mm home movies taken by travelers — the kinds of people who parked at John Woodrum's motel, or simply stopped in the middle of the road because there was so little traffic. Through the years in these travel photos we see new buildings popping up in the distance and little changes made to the sign by generations of maintenance crews.
Later, the sign shows up on home movies shot on VHS, with mega-resorts in the background.
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